Lamar Jackson ACC Football Player of the Year

After leading the nation’s top-ranked scoring offense and guiding the University of Louisville to a co-Atlantic Division championship, sophomore quarterback Lamar Jackson has been selected as the 2016 Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year.

Members of the Atlantic Coast Sports Media Association (ACSMA) voted overwhelmingly for Jackson, who was also voted the ACC Offensive Player of the Year.

In guiding the Cardinals to a 9-3 overall record, including a 7-1 league, Jackson finished the regular season holding ACC and school records with 51 touchdowns responsible for (30 passing, 21 rushing), rushing yards by a quarterback with 1,538, and rushing touchdowns by a quarterback with 21. He tied an ACC mark with eight touchdowns in the season-opening win over Charlotte, including matching a school mark with six touchdown passes.

A finalist for the Maxwell, Manning, and O’Brien awards, Jackson shattered Louisville’s single-season record for rushing yards in a season, and his eight 100-yard rushing games also broke a school mark.

The Pompano Beach, Fla., native, Jackson has passed for 3,390 yards and 30 touchdowns and is two scores shy of breaking Teddy Bridgewater’s single-season mark. Jackson totaled a pair of 400-yard passing games this season, including a career-best 417 yards in a win on the road at Marshall on Sept. 24, and 411 yards in a victory at Syracuse on Sept. 9.

He amassed an ACC-record 610 total yards in a win over Syracuse, a game in which he came within one rushing yard of becoming the first player in FBS history to run for 400 yards and pass for 200 yards in the same game.

Jackson, who owns a 14-5 career record as a starter, is the school’s first ACC Player of the Year. During the season, he was named the Walter Camp Offensive Player of the Week on three occasions and also honored three times as the ACC Offensive Back of the Week.

Jackson paced the overall ACC Player of the Year balloting with 36 votes. Clemson junior quarterback Deshaun Watson – the 2015 ACC Player of the Year – placed second with five votes. Florida State junior running back Dalvin Cook and Pitt redshirt running back James Conner – the 2014 ACC Player of the Year – collected three votes apiece, and Clemson senior linebacker Ben Boulware received one.

The ACC Offensive Player of the Year balloting was similar, as Jackson led with 36 votes, followed by Watson with six and Cook and Conner with three each.